Monday Miscellaneous

Tweaking the House:

Like Shay, at Quilting in My Pyjamas before me, it seems that this blog has temporarily turned into a litany of renovations, albeit comparatively minor.

Our new house is not very old.  It was built just three years ago.  Oddly enough, there is not a single medicine cabinet in any of the bathrooms.

While my mother (my conspirator in home renovation) and I are up for learning new things, and have had some experience in making small repairs, neither of us wanted to tackle installing a classic medicine cabinet--one that is inset in the sheet rock.  Instead we bought one of the over-the-toilet cabinets that can be purchased at any Wal-mart.

Before

After

Fabric Sale:

So what would any quilter do when faced with a sale from Thousands of Bolts?  An end of the year sale in which the fabrics were running from $2.95/yd to $3.50/yd?  Why, buy 28 yards of course!

PhD Challenge:

I'm pleased to say I'm on the downhill side of one my Projects Half Done Challenge quilt.  I have finished the hand-quilting, and have begun FMQ the last two borders.  I attempted to take a picture of the quilting, but my thread blends so well, that none of the pictures show much.  It will be very nice to have this very old project completed.

Myra's 2011 PhD (Projects Half Done) Challenge

After reading about Myra's 2011 PhD Challenge over at Quilting in My Pyjamas I decided I'd jump on the Projects Half Done bandwagon.  You see, Projects Half Done could be my middle name.  I've got one flimsy that is probably getting upwards of fifteen years old.  I'm a much better starter than a finisher.  And in the past, I've been a much better piecer than quilter.  I'm trying to remedy the latter by learning how to FMQ.  That said, I'm only committing two projects to Myra's PhD Challenge, as life has a habit of getting in the way of my quilting goals.  Plus, I reserve the right to start a new project and live with the guilt of that fifteen year old flimsy.

PhD #1:  The Scrappy Star.  This project is at least ten years old.  It's now gone through two major moves.  In my defense, this quilt is hand-pieced and the blocks and the inner checked border will be hand-quilted.  In the interest of having this one finally done, I'm going against my obsessive-compulsive nature and will FMQ the last two borders.  At this point, I have 1 1/2 blocks and part of the checked border left to hand-quilt.  All  of the two outer borders still need to be quilted.

PhD #2 is sampler from a block swap.  The swap was called "You Pick" and was hosted by a gal I became acquainted with on RCTQ (rec.crafts.textiles.quilting), a quilting newsgroup.  Each participant chose a focus fabric and sent a 12" square of it to the other participants to make a block.  My focus fabric was a pansy fabric.  I received some gorgeous blocks back.




I have begun free motion quilting the sandwich, and have five of the sixteen blocks done.  I'm doing the sashing as I go.

As you can see since these projects are really more than "half done", I should easily be able to finish them by June.  Now, I only hope that it's true!